Hi,i am at the very first steps of studying programming languages and need some info. Basically i am studying (first year) physics in University of Crete (Greece) but we study computers a lot. I started with Fortran and when i get back now i will get advanced Fortran. (We must take these lessons,i had no option).After that,i have C,C++ and Java from which i can choose which i want to study.Let me tell you what i want...I am interested in number theory,cryptography and hacking. I am very new though,i have red a book in cryptography but was more likely general infos and not mathematics.I would like to learn cryptography,programming and hacking so,can you help me a little about from where to start and what to do? I red the post "beginning programming,advice!",is this good enough to take the same programme. I am asking because i have absolutely NO idea (though i like computers and understand them easily) in hacking and i wanna start from scratch.Thank you for your time.

Well to start cryptography is mostly math, so first of all I would make sure that you love to do math. I am not sure if you mean that you want to work doing cryptography or you simply want to try and learn to "hack" like you see on the movies.

As for learning the languages I would not even bother with Java, it really doesn't give you enough control ( I think ) to do anything worth while. Also if you are wanting to "hack" such as security you are going to need to become very familiar with how the internet works ( sql injection, html, etc.).

If you are wanting to jump into learning a programming language I would probably start off with C++ or C. I don't believe that there is a "good" starting language, some are easier than others but you are using the same concepts in each just with different implementations.